Braking feel is largely tied to brake fluid and friction materials. Cars that are 20 years old are not using the original stuff for any of that.
I think the OP was after a comparison of how newer vehicles compared to older ones, not how newer vehicles compared to older ones that have been upgraded with newer components.
ABS does not help you stop sooner. It really doesn't and it's not supposed to. Seriously, it's to help you turn while stopping. In a straight line, you're often better off without it.
I know what ABS is for, and I guarantee you that in real life it stops most people sooner than they would have without it.
Consider that my response was toward someone who made the flawed assumption that a car now will be less likely to hit that barrier because it will handle better, but the truth is that a modern car will not necessarily handle better and will be heavier. A heavier car inherently can't turn or stop as well as a lighter car. It's a flawed assumption.
My point is that there's a lot more involved in how a car handles than its weight. Unless you want to argue that, say, a SMART ForTwo drives better than, say, a Mazda MX-5.:)
It's irrelevant until you need to fix the problem.
Not really. Once a system has been infected with malware, it should be nuked (unless you have some method of independently verifying everything on it).
Windows malware, all too often, totally breaks the system, somehow managing to escape from the user account.
Typically because the user allows it to ("Click Continue to see porn ? Sure I will."). Less frequently, by actually exploiting some privilege escalation bug.
Linux, however, has actual account separation. Yes, malware could get in, and horrible infect an account, turning the machine into some virus spewing monster.
Linux has no more account separation than Windows. Less, technically speaking, unless you've got SELinux running (and most don't).
Hell, you could fix the system by installing antivirus after the infection, which is near impossible on Windows.
How do you know the malware hasn't used a local escalation exploit, spread itself throughout the whole system, and possibly even into things like the MBR or BIOS ?
Bullshit. I was just having a friendly discussion of some cultural differences that I think are important. That you think it irrelevant, does not make my argument a straw man.
But it *was* irrelevant. It had nothing to do with any of the previous discussion, nor my quoted text you were "responding" to. You changed the topic from the poor setting of speed limits, to racism and "cute girls".
But you haven't shown a causal link.
Uh, I don't need to. I'm refuting an argument, not making one.
You also didn't provide any figures. For this to be true, you'd have to show that EVERY country with higher or unrestricted speed limits have substantially lower accident rates, and that would still just be correlation.
No, I don't, because I'm not trying to argue what you think I'm trying to argue. I'm _refuting_ the simplistic argument that "speed kills", and all I need for that, is to demonstrate situations where higher speeds have not led to higher fatalities (ie: where speed doesn't kill).
There are fatality rates either on, or directly linked from, the Wikipedia page I linked to. Though I would have hoped someone arguing fervently about road safety would already have a rough idea of how the various countries compare in terms of fatalities.
I don't disagree at all the the lower rates in Continental Europe are probably due to other factors like better driver training. That's why I said from the start that the Australian Governments *not* investing any time or effort in those other areas supports my position that they're not really interested in actually improving safety.
But why should we be using the "85th percentile" it doesn't seem like very good assumptions, and is based on flawed premise and methodology.
We should be using it because it's based on decades of research and data, not gut feelings and politics. If you think the assumptions and premises are bad, then by all means come up with some new ones that are also supported by evidence.
What reason is there to raise speed limits?
When done appropriately, it increases traffic throughput, improves compliance rates and lets people get where they want to go sooner. What reasons are there *not* to (appropriately) raise speed limits ?
But it is.
The evidence says otherwise.
Did you fail basic physics or something?
In fact, I got one of the highest marks in my school, then went to University to study it. However, I am unfamiliar with the equation that connects speed and accident probability.
Not a strawman, and no, you haven't demonstrated it. You seem to think that any veering from your talking points is a straw man. Very odd.
It was a straw man. I never argued lower fatality rates were caused by higher speeds, I demonstrated that - contrary to your assertion and Government propaganda - that higher speeds do not inherently cause more fatalities.
How? it's a perfectly relevant question. I just think you don't want a real discussion, you just want to preach.
It's a straw man because I never made any such argument.
I'll just point out here that Linux users generally do not run as Admin-God on their machines, so while they could still bork their own user account it becomes that much more difficult to compromise the entire machine.
I'll just point out there that since the vast majority of machines aren't professionally-run multiuser servers, and very little malware really needs elevated privileges, that distinction is basically irrelevant in the real world.
How does telling a truth that makes you feel uncomfortable make it a strawman?
The straw man is you redefining "corruption" in the context of this discussion and then making an unsupported assertion about it, in an attempt to divert the discussion away from something you don't want to address. You can call it an "Irrelevant Conclusion" if you prefer.
Incidentally, if you don't think those things happen in Australia, you're pretty naive.
But provided no evidence.
Actually, I did provide evidence of roads with higher speed limits have no worse (or better) safety statistics.
The speed limit in Australia has been 100-110km/h for many years, well before speed cameras and such. So, where is the evidence that seed limits have been lowered for financial gain?
Speed limits have not been _raised_ despite dramatic improvements to vehicles and roads applying upward pressure on 85th percentile speeds. Additionally, there is the significant (and disproportionate) redistribution of resources to "combat speed", and the lowering of tolerances. These are the things delivering "financial gain".
Because you're not providing any evidence that faster is safer.
Probably because my primary argument is not that faster is safer, but that faster is not inherently more dangerous. That an overall (albeit probably insignificant) improvement in safety would probably result from spending less time on the road, is a side issue.
Just pointing to the autobahns is irrelevant, because drivers there have a different standard of training, different vehicles, etc.
But you either haven't argued about any of those, or have just dismissed them out of hand. Your position (along with the Government's) is, quite simply, that faster == more dangerous (regardless of any other factors - though several police and government spokesman have said on more than one occasion that better driver training would be a bad thing as it "encourages risk taking"). "Just pointing to the autobahns" is, in fact, extremely relevant to refuting your assertion.
I am well aware of the different factors in other countries affecting road safety, which is why I mentioned them earlier as an example of how Governments in Australia could be improving road safety but aren't, because they're too focused on minor issues like speed and seatbelts.
Correlation is not causation. Even if their speed limit is higher, and there are fewer accidents, does not mean it's because of the higher speed limit.
A straw man again - and an ironic one at that. My argument was that a higher speed limit without higher fatality rates demonstrates there is not a causative relationship between speed and safety, in the face of your assertion that there is.
Do you really believe that if the speed limit was lowered on the autobahns, and it was obeyed, that there would suddenly be more accidents?
That would be the part where you start going on about "driving while black", etc.
What evidence do you have of that?
Pretty sure I've already covered my reasoning.
But most of our driving isn't done on motorways, it's done on streets and roads.
Which is relevant to how Australian motorways are designed...how, exactly ?
So autobahns and highways are mostly irrelevant.
Considering one of your (not to mention the Government's) key arguments seems to be "faster == more dangerous", why is the level of safety on the roads with the highest vehicle speeds not relevant ?
My point is that they have almost nothing in common. Enforcement isn't corrupt in Australia - everybody gets the same treatment. While in America, your infringement is either totally ignored, you get busted for driving while black, get a free pass for driving while being a cute female, or used as an excuse for drug searches.
This is what's called a straw man.
What makes you say that enforcement in Australia is corrupt?
Because the laws are designed and enforced with a an objective of revenue raising, rather than road safety.
That's of little relevance, as autobahns are very different to the roads that most of us do our driving on. They are designed for high speeds.
The typical Autobahn is designed no differently from any reasonably modern Australian Motorway. Indeed, many of them are noticeably worse. If you'd ever actually been on an Autobahn, you'd know that.
You don't need the same braking power to slow a car weighing much less. The brakes in the mid-eighties Civics were plenty strong enough to lock up the tires. Once you can lock up the tires, you don't need more powerful brakes - just better driving skills.
Modern brakes have a much better feel and consistency, come on quicker, and have less fade, making it easier for the driver to maximise braking power.
ABS does not help you stop sooner. It helps you turn while stopping. ABS in a straight line will actually typically stop you slower, especially in slippery conditions.
Maybe if you're Michael Schumacher, then you can stop better than ABS on tarmac (and even them, probably not consistently better). For the average driver, ABS will stop them much sooner because it means they won't lock up the wheels. To say nothing of the "into a barrier" scenario pretty much guaranteeing that the car isn't travelling in a straight line, another a situation where a human will rarely outperform ABS consistently, if at all.
A mid-late eighties Civic had double-wishbone suspension all around. They are still great-handling cars, but the mid-late eighties Civics and CRXs make great and popular race cars for a reason.
I used to own an '88 Civic, so I know how well they drive - and in context, it _is_ very well (I'm pretty sure the Civic the original poster is talking about is the model before it). However, to say that the technology and manufacturing has not improved dramatically in twenty years, is just silly.
Cars have gotten better at crashing in the last few decades without a doubt, but it's still important to also recognize that smaller, lighter cars are much better at avoiding crashes in the first place do to better braking, turning, and acceleration.
I would be jaw-droppingly astounded if a contemporary car does not do everything (with the possible exception of straight-line acceleration) substantially better (and at lower cost) than its twenty-year-old counterpart, given the same conditions.
I seem to recall a Top Gear episode where they took high performance/non-stock older vehicles, and compared them to modern stock vehicles (eg: Audio Quattro vs Subaru WRX, or something like that) and the modern vehicles won easily.
Actually, if you want to cut accidents, then this is what you want to do rather than adding more obstacles...
I expect that works quite well in areas with high levels of pedestrian traffic, but I doubt it does so well in residential streets with much fewer people walking around.
" 2 degrees chief executive Eric Hertz admitted rear-ending another vehicle at an intersection in Auckland a few weeks ago while glancing at directions on his iPhone, which was mounted on a hands-free kit in his car. Under the new law, that would be illegal"
Well, if Mr Hertz managed to rear-end another vehicles while "glancing" at the GPS on his phone, it's highly likely that Mr Hertz was going to read-end another vehicle anyway, at some point. If a "glance" at a GPS results in you have an accident, you were already driving recklessly.
Well, obviously something is working. Why is road rule compliance so much higher in Australia than the US, if such things don't work?
Because the road rules there are even sillier than they are in Australia and their enforcement even more corrupt ? Come on, you pick one of the few countries in the civilised world that is worse for this sort of thing than Australia, then try to use that as an example of how good Australia is ?
Further, where is the evidence of this "higher compliance" ? How is it measured ? How does it compare to other countries like France, Germany or even the UK ?
Well, setting speed limits is not an exact science. What makes you think that the Australians got it wrong, and the Europeans got it right?
The fact it's safer to drive in most of Western Europe than Australia. Anecdotally, it's also far less stressful - even in countries like Italy (well, at least on the motorways) - this is largely due to drivers having vastly better lane discipline.
According to physics, slower is safer, so wouldn't that mean that Australia's slower limits are the more scientific option?
According to evidence, absolute speed has relatively little influence on safety - that is, the probability of having a fatal accident. Additionally, in the context of speed limit enforcement, it's even more irrelevant since the vast majority of accidents happen at under the posted limit (ie: "not speeding"). If the relationship were as you describe, then the higher-speed roads in Europe (and in general - ie: as opposed to lower speed urban and residential roads) would be deathtraps. The unrestricted German Autobahns would be clearly more dangerous than other motorway systems. In actual fact, they're amongst the safest in the world.
The way I see it, if you're going at 100km/h you're still going to get where you're going pretty quickly. Why the need for the extra 30km/h? Besides, 100km/h is more fuel efficient than 130.
Because it gets you there quicker, and the less time you spend on the road, the safer you are. An extra 30km/h will make a substantial time difference for even a 200km journey, let alone longer 500km and 1000km trips.
You sound like someone who doesn't do much driving outside of a major city. Your argument simply boils down to "well it's fast enough for me, so why would anyone want to go faster".
I bring it up as a comparison of the cultures and legislatures. Having lived in both countries, Australia simply does not have the same corrupt meddling in safety laws as the USA does. It's a country with a tradition of civil service and respect for boffins (CSIRO, etc). Since you're arguing it's political, then I need to see some evidence that politicians directly meddle with speed limits.
My position is more that it's clearly not scientific, which doesn't really leave any other options than political meddling (be it direct or indirect).
State Governments have spent (at least) twenty years telling everyone how incredibly dangerous it is to exceed the speed limit. How anyone who does so is a reckless danger to society. They have done this instead of pursuing more effective strategies because those other strategies are both expensive and difficult. "Speed kills", on the other hand, is the exact opposite - easy and profitable. It is the "think of the children" slogan of road safety, and has about as much relevance.
The three pillars of road safety in Australia are "Belt up", "Don't drink and drive" and "Speed kills", with the latter two drawing the strongest focus by far. Of the three, the first is basically pointless (seatbelt usage rates are already in the high 90s and have been for a decade or more), and the third is a relatively minor factor in fatalities. Only the second carries some genuine weight. Progress with steps that would actually improve road safety (stricter car regulations, proper driver traini
It's not a fair comparison. The 85 civic weighs considerably less, 500-1000lbs depending on the configuration. This means that while your 2005 civic may hit the barrier at 40mph, a driver with similar response time would hit the barrier at 30-35 in their 85.
That's assuming they cars have equivalent braking power, which seems rather naive. A 2005 model probably has disc brakes all around, substantially better tyres and suspension, and ABS.
Arranging head on collisions sounds a lot more like 5th Gear than Top Gear.
Oh, no, it sounds completely like Top Gear. It's the "Espace vs Espace" part (as opposed to, say, "London Bus vs Lotus Elise") that sounds a bit out of place.
I have never known why industry standards such as HD-SDI have never made it to the consumer market. Single coax cable terminated with BNCs that can deliver 4k (four times the resolution of 1080p) or higher with 16 channels of audio, all uncompressed, at a length of over 100m.
Same reason Intel and Apple are touting this instead of just using 10GbE. The margins for consumer market hardware components are razor thing.
Re:And yet they do nothing to discourage the car
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The Fresca Rebellion
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Americans are usually astonished when I tell them I walk 20 minutes to work.
What's really funny is those same people would think nothing of _driving_ for twice that time to get to work, spending most of it in traffic probably not moving any faster that you are.:)
If you really believe it you lack real world experience in ANY profession. It's idealist nonsense.
Are you seriously trying to argue that it's difficult to identify the majority of potential failures in a given piece of IT infrastructure ? Do you really think that nearly all components - both hardware and software - cannot be made multiply redundant ?
What do you do about a power hungry out of control government bent on controlling as many aspects of your life as possible?
a) Find enough people who agree with you to vote them out.
b) Relocate to a country with more people that agree with you than don't.
You might not like the idea of everyone else dictating to you, but, guess what ? Everyone else around you feels the same way, and when most of them disagree with you, you either need to live with it, or leave. That's the nature of a democratic society.
If you want an anarchic society, where everyone just does whatever the hell they want, you might want to look at places like Somalia.
People are pissed off about it because they know that once bureaucrats run health care, they run your life. What you can eat, when you can eat it, how much you can eat, when, where and what kind of exercise you will do, when you get up, when you sleep. and (if all that wasn't frightening enough) Who lives, who dies, and when they die.
Ah. You mean like it has in all those countries where universal healthcare has been around for decades, if not longer ?
Oh, wait, nothing like that has happened anywhere except the fantasies of crazy right-wingers...
What education should be about is understanding, if you just train someone in one version of s/ware many just adopt a point and click approach with little understanding of what they are doing. You need different sorts of s/ware to make them think. Schools should use a mixture of: MS, Mac & Linux PCs.
You seem to have severely misunderstood the purpose of these machines.
I'd heard that too, so soon after we got a portable GPS for our car I tested it - the speedo was within 1 km/hr of the GPS all the way up to 110 km/hr.
That's actually fairly surprising. I've tested with several vehicles and GPSes myself and found the 4-5% figure the be fairly accurate. What make, model and year ?
No, but the massive fine or loss of driver's license for being that far over the limit will deter it.
Which explains why no-one ever does it, right ?
You don't "deter" normal people from doing things with excessive punishments (well, you can, but you need to go to ludicrous extremes - eg: overbearing surveillance, crippling fines, life imprisonment, capital punishment, etc - to achieve it). The whole line of thought behind that principle is broken. If someone is prepared to do something as reckless as 100km/h down a residential street, the threat of fines and loss of license is not going to deter them.
If you *genuinely* want to reduce traffic speed on a residential street, then you re-engineer them so that people feel like the "old" speed is too fast. Typically this is done with speed bumps and/or chicanes, or narrowing. The only reason to just drop the speed limit from, say, 40 to 30, is so you can fine people for speeding.
To the best of my knowledge, Australian speed limits (and red light timing) are set by guidelines established by scientists and engineers, not by politicians.
Strange, then, that the posted limits (not to mention ambient speed) on most freeways is notably lower than in other countries with similar, if not worse, roads (eg: Germany's unrestricted and 130km/h Autobahns, France's 130km/h Autoroutes, Italy's 130km/h Autostradas, etc). In fact, 120-130km/h seems to be the typical motorway speed in most of Europe. Can you think of a reason why "scientists and engineers" in Australia come to such different conclusions than their overseas peers ?
The crusade against speed in Australia (and particularly Victoria) has demonstrated, quite well, how little bearing speed (and the brutal enforcement thereof) has on road safety. After nearly two decades of it, though, speeding is actually decreasing. Of course, this hasn't really made the roads any safer, but it has - unsurprisingly - resulted in tolerances tightening to keep the money flowing in (Exhibit A: Victoria's technically unenforceable 3km/h tolerances).
Finally, I'm not sure why you bring red light cameras into the discussion. In Australia (and all the parts of Europe I've been to, with the exception of Italy) they don't have any of the gross implementation corruption that is rampant throughout the US (primarily, the shortening of amber phases). Red light cameras are not (yet) used as a revenue-generation device in Australia.
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Braking feel is largely tied to brake fluid and friction materials. Cars that are 20 years old are not using the original stuff for any of that.
I think the OP was after a comparison of how newer vehicles compared to older ones, not how newer vehicles compared to older ones that have been upgraded with newer components.
ABS does not help you stop sooner. It really doesn't and it's not supposed to. Seriously, it's to help you turn while stopping. In a straight line, you're often better off without it.
I know what ABS is for, and I guarantee you that in real life it stops most people sooner than they would have without it.
Consider that my response was toward someone who made the flawed assumption that a car now will be less likely to hit that barrier because it will handle better, but the truth is that a modern car will not necessarily handle better and will be heavier. A heavier car inherently can't turn or stop as well as a lighter car. It's a flawed assumption.
My point is that there's a lot more involved in how a car handles than its weight. Unless you want to argue that, say, a SMART ForTwo drives better than, say, a Mazda MX-5. :)
It's irrelevant until you need to fix the problem.
Not really. Once a system has been infected with malware, it should be nuked (unless you have some method of independently verifying everything on it).
Windows malware, all too often, totally breaks the system, somehow managing to escape from the user account.
Typically because the user allows it to ("Click Continue to see porn ? Sure I will."). Less frequently, by actually exploiting some privilege escalation bug.
Linux, however, has actual account separation. Yes, malware could get in, and horrible infect an account, turning the machine into some virus spewing monster.
Linux has no more account separation than Windows. Less, technically speaking, unless you've got SELinux running (and most don't).
Hell, you could fix the system by installing antivirus after the infection, which is near impossible on Windows.
How do you know the malware hasn't used a local escalation exploit, spread itself throughout the whole system, and possibly even into things like the MBR or BIOS ?
Bullshit. I was just having a friendly discussion of some cultural differences that I think are important. That you think it irrelevant, does not make my argument a straw man.
But it *was* irrelevant. It had nothing to do with any of the previous discussion, nor my quoted text you were "responding" to. You changed the topic from the poor setting of speed limits, to racism and "cute girls".
But you haven't shown a causal link.
Uh, I don't need to. I'm refuting an argument, not making one.
You also didn't provide any figures. For this to be true, you'd have to show that EVERY country with higher or unrestricted speed limits have substantially lower accident rates, and that would still just be correlation.
No, I don't, because I'm not trying to argue what you think I'm trying to argue. I'm _refuting_ the simplistic argument that "speed kills", and all I need for that, is to demonstrate situations where higher speeds have not led to higher fatalities (ie: where speed doesn't kill).
There are fatality rates either on, or directly linked from, the Wikipedia page I linked to. Though I would have hoped someone arguing fervently about road safety would already have a rough idea of how the various countries compare in terms of fatalities.
I don't disagree at all the the lower rates in Continental Europe are probably due to other factors like better driver training. That's why I said from the start that the Australian Governments *not* investing any time or effort in those other areas supports my position that they're not really interested in actually improving safety.
But why should we be using the "85th percentile" it doesn't seem like very good assumptions, and is based on flawed premise and methodology.
We should be using it because it's based on decades of research and data, not gut feelings and politics. If you think the assumptions and premises are bad, then by all means come up with some new ones that are also supported by evidence.
What reason is there to raise speed limits?
When done appropriately, it increases traffic throughput, improves compliance rates and lets people get where they want to go sooner. What reasons are there *not* to (appropriately) raise speed limits ?
But it is.
The evidence says otherwise.
Did you fail basic physics or something?
In fact, I got one of the highest marks in my school, then went to University to study it. However, I am unfamiliar with the equation that connects speed and accident probability.
Not a strawman, and no, you haven't demonstrated it. You seem to think that any veering from your talking points is a straw man. Very odd.
It was a straw man. I never argued lower fatality rates were caused by higher speeds, I demonstrated that - contrary to your assertion and Government propaganda - that higher speeds do not inherently cause more fatalities.
How? it's a perfectly relevant question. I just think you don't want a real discussion, you just want to preach.
It's a straw man because I never made any such argument.
The vulnerabilities are apparently the result of Microsoft release policies:
It's kind of cute you think their release policies are meaningfully different to anyone else's.
You do realise a "defect" in the context of those numbers could be as trivial as a typo in a helpfile, right ?
IF the programmers of Apple OSX, Linux, and BSD can make mostly malware-free software, Microsoft can also.
When OSX, Linux and BSD have the same user demographic, the comparison can be validly made.
Those operating systems have fewer vulnerabilities because they were designed to be secure.
Perhaps you can elaborate on the relevant "design" aspects you're referring to here.
The best way to stop malware is to audit code so that it doesn't have vulnerabilities.
Most malware doesn't exploit software vulnerabilities, though, it exploits wetware ones.
I'll just point out here that Linux users generally do not run as Admin-God on their machines, so while they could still bork their own user account it becomes that much more difficult to compromise the entire machine.
I'll just point out there that since the vast majority of machines aren't professionally-run multiuser servers, and very little malware really needs elevated privileges, that distinction is basically irrelevant in the real world.
How does telling a truth that makes you feel uncomfortable make it a strawman?
The straw man is you redefining "corruption" in the context of this discussion and then making an unsupported assertion about it, in an attempt to divert the discussion away from something you don't want to address. You can call it an "Irrelevant Conclusion" if you prefer.
Incidentally, if you don't think those things happen in Australia, you're pretty naive.
But provided no evidence.
Actually, I did provide evidence of roads with higher speed limits have no worse (or better) safety statistics.
The speed limit in Australia has been 100-110km/h for many years, well before speed cameras and such. So, where is the evidence that seed limits have been lowered for financial gain?
Speed limits have not been _raised_ despite dramatic improvements to vehicles and roads applying upward pressure on 85th percentile speeds. Additionally, there is the significant (and disproportionate) redistribution of resources to "combat speed", and the lowering of tolerances. These are the things delivering "financial gain".
Because you're not providing any evidence that faster is safer.
Probably because my primary argument is not that faster is safer, but that faster is not inherently more dangerous. That an overall (albeit probably insignificant) improvement in safety would probably result from spending less time on the road, is a side issue.
Just pointing to the autobahns is irrelevant, because drivers there have a different standard of training, different vehicles, etc.
But you either haven't argued about any of those, or have just dismissed them out of hand. Your position (along with the Government's) is, quite simply, that faster == more dangerous (regardless of any other factors - though several police and government spokesman have said on more than one occasion that better driver training would be a bad thing as it "encourages risk taking"). "Just pointing to the autobahns" is, in fact, extremely relevant to refuting your assertion.
I am well aware of the different factors in other countries affecting road safety, which is why I mentioned them earlier as an example of how Governments in Australia could be improving road safety but aren't, because they're too focused on minor issues like speed and seatbelts.
Correlation is not causation. Even if their speed limit is higher, and there are fewer accidents, does not mean it's because of the higher speed limit.
A straw man again - and an ironic one at that. My argument was that a higher speed limit without higher fatality rates demonstrates there is not a causative relationship between speed and safety, in the face of your assertion that there is.
Do you really believe that if the speed limit was lowered on the autobahns, and it was obeyed, that there would suddenly be more accidents?
Another straw man.
How is it a straw man?
That would be the part where you start going on about "driving while black", etc.
What evidence do you have of that?
Pretty sure I've already covered my reasoning.
But most of our driving isn't done on motorways, it's done on streets and roads.
Which is relevant to how Australian motorways are designed...how, exactly ?
So autobahns and highways are mostly irrelevant.
Considering one of your (not to mention the Government's) key arguments seems to be "faster == more dangerous", why is the level of safety on the roads with the highest vehicle speeds not relevant ?
My point is that they have almost nothing in common. Enforcement isn't corrupt in Australia - everybody gets the same treatment. While in America, your infringement is either totally ignored, you get busted for driving while black, get a free pass for driving while being a cute female, or used as an excuse for drug searches.
This is what's called a straw man.
What makes you say that enforcement in Australia is corrupt?
Because the laws are designed and enforced with a an objective of revenue raising, rather than road safety.
That's of little relevance, as autobahns are very different to the roads that most of us do our driving on. They are designed for high speeds.
The typical Autobahn is designed no differently from any reasonably modern Australian Motorway. Indeed, many of them are noticeably worse. If you'd ever actually been on an Autobahn, you'd know that.
You don't need the same braking power to slow a car weighing much less. The brakes in the mid-eighties Civics were plenty strong enough to lock up the tires. Once you can lock up the tires, you don't need more powerful brakes - just better driving skills.
Modern brakes have a much better feel and consistency, come on quicker, and have less fade, making it easier for the driver to maximise braking power.
ABS does not help you stop sooner. It helps you turn while stopping. ABS in a straight line will actually typically stop you slower, especially in slippery conditions.
Maybe if you're Michael Schumacher, then you can stop better than ABS on tarmac (and even them, probably not consistently better). For the average driver, ABS will stop them much sooner because it means they won't lock up the wheels. To say nothing of the "into a barrier" scenario pretty much guaranteeing that the car isn't travelling in a straight line, another a situation where a human will rarely outperform ABS consistently, if at all.
A mid-late eighties Civic had double-wishbone suspension all around. They are still great-handling cars, but the mid-late eighties Civics and CRXs make great and popular race cars for a reason.
I used to own an '88 Civic, so I know how well they drive - and in context, it _is_ very well (I'm pretty sure the Civic the original poster is talking about is the model before it). However, to say that the technology and manufacturing has not improved dramatically in twenty years, is just silly.
Cars have gotten better at crashing in the last few decades without a doubt, but it's still important to also recognize that smaller, lighter cars are much better at avoiding crashes in the first place do to better braking, turning, and acceleration.
I would be jaw-droppingly astounded if a contemporary car does not do everything (with the possible exception of straight-line acceleration) substantially better (and at lower cost) than its twenty-year-old counterpart, given the same conditions.
I seem to recall a Top Gear episode where they took high performance/non-stock older vehicles, and compared them to modern stock vehicles (eg: Audio Quattro vs Subaru WRX, or something like that) and the modern vehicles won easily.
Actually, if you want to cut accidents, then this is what you want to do rather than adding more obstacles...
I expect that works quite well in areas with high levels of pedestrian traffic, but I doubt it does so well in residential streets with much fewer people walking around.
" 2 degrees chief executive Eric Hertz admitted rear-ending another vehicle at an intersection in Auckland a few weeks ago while glancing at directions on his iPhone, which was mounted on a hands-free kit in his car. Under the new law, that would be illegal"
Well, if Mr Hertz managed to rear-end another vehicles while "glancing" at the GPS on his phone, it's highly likely that Mr Hertz was going to read-end another vehicle anyway, at some point. If a "glance" at a GPS results in you have an accident, you were already driving recklessly.
Well, obviously something is working. Why is road rule compliance so much higher in Australia than the US, if such things don't work?
Because the road rules there are even sillier than they are in Australia and their enforcement even more corrupt ? Come on, you pick one of the few countries in the civilised world that is worse for this sort of thing than Australia, then try to use that as an example of how good Australia is ?
Further, where is the evidence of this "higher compliance" ? How is it measured ? How does it compare to other countries like France, Germany or even the UK ?
Well, setting speed limits is not an exact science. What makes you think that the Australians got it wrong, and the Europeans got it right?
The fact it's safer to drive in most of Western Europe than Australia. Anecdotally, it's also far less stressful - even in countries like Italy (well, at least on the motorways) - this is largely due to drivers having vastly better lane discipline.
According to physics, slower is safer, so wouldn't that mean that Australia's slower limits are the more scientific option?
According to evidence, absolute speed has relatively little influence on safety - that is, the probability of having a fatal accident. Additionally, in the context of speed limit enforcement, it's even more irrelevant since the vast majority of accidents happen at under the posted limit (ie: "not speeding"). If the relationship were as you describe, then the higher-speed roads in Europe (and in general - ie: as opposed to lower speed urban and residential roads) would be deathtraps. The unrestricted German Autobahns would be clearly more dangerous than other motorway systems. In actual fact, they're amongst the safest in the world.
The way I see it, if you're going at 100km/h you're still going to get where you're going pretty quickly. Why the need for the extra 30km/h? Besides, 100km/h is more fuel efficient than 130.
Because it gets you there quicker, and the less time you spend on the road, the safer you are. An extra 30km/h will make a substantial time difference for even a 200km journey, let alone longer 500km and 1000km trips.
You sound like someone who doesn't do much driving outside of a major city. Your argument simply boils down to "well it's fast enough for me, so why would anyone want to go faster".
I bring it up as a comparison of the cultures and legislatures. Having lived in both countries, Australia simply does not have the same corrupt meddling in safety laws as the USA does. It's a country with a tradition of civil service and respect for boffins (CSIRO, etc). Since you're arguing it's political, then I need to see some evidence that politicians directly meddle with speed limits.
My position is more that it's clearly not scientific, which doesn't really leave any other options than political meddling (be it direct or indirect).
State Governments have spent (at least) twenty years telling everyone how incredibly dangerous it is to exceed the speed limit. How anyone who does so is a reckless danger to society. They have done this instead of pursuing more effective strategies because those other strategies are both expensive and difficult. "Speed kills", on the other hand, is the exact opposite - easy and profitable. It is the "think of the children" slogan of road safety, and has about as much relevance.
The three pillars of road safety in Australia are "Belt up", "Don't drink and drive" and "Speed kills", with the latter two drawing the strongest focus by far. Of the three, the first is basically pointless (seatbelt usage rates are already in the high 90s and have been for a decade or more), and the third is a relatively minor factor in fatalities. Only the second carries some genuine weight. Progress with steps that would actually improve road safety (stricter car regulations, proper driver traini
It's not a fair comparison. The 85 civic weighs considerably less, 500-1000lbs depending on the configuration. This means that while your 2005 civic may hit the barrier at 40mph, a driver with similar response time would hit the barrier at 30-35 in their 85.
That's assuming they cars have equivalent braking power, which seems rather naive. A 2005 model probably has disc brakes all around, substantially better tyres and suspension, and ABS.
Arranging head on collisions sounds a lot more like 5th Gear than Top Gear.
Oh, no, it sounds completely like Top Gear. It's the "Espace vs Espace" part (as opposed to, say, "London Bus vs Lotus Elise") that sounds a bit out of place.
Partly because the first iteration will be 10 Gigabit but the next generation will be 100 Gigabit.
100GbE is already under development.
I have never known why industry standards such as HD-SDI have never made it to the consumer market. Single coax cable terminated with BNCs that can deliver 4k (four times the resolution of 1080p) or higher with 16 channels of audio, all uncompressed, at a length of over 100m.
Same reason Intel and Apple are touting this instead of just using 10GbE. The margins for consumer market hardware components are razor thing.
Americans are usually astonished when I tell them I walk 20 minutes to work.
What's really funny is those same people would think nothing of _driving_ for twice that time to get to work, spending most of it in traffic probably not moving any faster that you are. :)
If you really believe it you lack real world experience in ANY profession. It's idealist nonsense.
Are you seriously trying to argue that it's difficult to identify the majority of potential failures in a given piece of IT infrastructure ? Do you really think that nearly all components - both hardware and software - cannot be made multiply redundant ?
What do you do about a power hungry out of control government bent on controlling as many aspects of your life as possible?
a) Find enough people who agree with you to vote them out.
b) Relocate to a country with more people that agree with you than don't.
You might not like the idea of everyone else dictating to you, but, guess what ? Everyone else around you feels the same way, and when most of them disagree with you, you either need to live with it, or leave. That's the nature of a democratic society.
If you want an anarchic society, where everyone just does whatever the hell they want, you might want to look at places like Somalia.
People are pissed off about it because they know that once bureaucrats run health care, they run your life. What you can eat, when you can eat it, how much you can eat, when, where and what kind of exercise you will do, when you get up, when you sleep. and (if all that wasn't frightening enough) Who lives, who dies, and when they die.
Ah. You mean like it has in all those countries where universal healthcare has been around for decades, if not longer ?
Oh, wait, nothing like that has happened anywhere except the fantasies of crazy right-wingers...
What education should be about is understanding, if you just train someone in one version of s/ware many just adopt a point and click approach with little understanding of what they are doing. You need different sorts of s/ware to make them think. Schools should use a mixture of: MS, Mac & Linux PCs.
You seem to have severely misunderstood the purpose of these machines.
I'd heard that too, so soon after we got a portable GPS for our car I tested it - the speedo was within 1 km/hr of the GPS all the way up to 110 km/hr.
That's actually fairly surprising. I've tested with several vehicles and GPSes myself and found the 4-5% figure the be fairly accurate. What make, model and year ?
No, but the massive fine or loss of driver's license for being that far over the limit will deter it.
Which explains why no-one ever does it, right ?
You don't "deter" normal people from doing things with excessive punishments (well, you can, but you need to go to ludicrous extremes - eg: overbearing surveillance, crippling fines, life imprisonment, capital punishment, etc - to achieve it). The whole line of thought behind that principle is broken. If someone is prepared to do something as reckless as 100km/h down a residential street, the threat of fines and loss of license is not going to deter them.
If you *genuinely* want to reduce traffic speed on a residential street, then you re-engineer them so that people feel like the "old" speed is too fast. Typically this is done with speed bumps and/or chicanes, or narrowing. The only reason to just drop the speed limit from, say, 40 to 30, is so you can fine people for speeding.
To the best of my knowledge, Australian speed limits (and red light timing) are set by guidelines established by scientists and engineers, not by politicians.
Strange, then, that the posted limits (not to mention ambient speed) on most freeways is notably lower than in other countries with similar, if not worse, roads (eg: Germany's unrestricted and 130km/h Autobahns, France's 130km/h Autoroutes, Italy's 130km/h Autostradas, etc). In fact, 120-130km/h seems to be the typical motorway speed in most of Europe. Can you think of a reason why "scientists and engineers" in Australia come to such different conclusions than their overseas peers ?
The crusade against speed in Australia (and particularly Victoria) has demonstrated, quite well, how little bearing speed (and the brutal enforcement thereof) has on road safety. After nearly two decades of it, though, speeding is actually decreasing. Of course, this hasn't really made the roads any safer, but it has - unsurprisingly - resulted in tolerances tightening to keep the money flowing in (Exhibit A: Victoria's technically unenforceable 3km/h tolerances).
Finally, I'm not sure why you bring red light cameras into the discussion. In Australia (and all the parts of Europe I've been to, with the exception of Italy) they don't have any of the gross implementation corruption that is rampant throughout the US (primarily, the shortening of amber phases). Red light cameras are not (yet) used as a revenue-generation device in Australia.